As I Knew Her
by captioned
Summary: Percy's eternity is made up of the many life-spans of Annabeth and clumsy words.


Percy's eternity is made up of the many life-spans of Annabeth and clumsy words.

* * *

**Sofia**

Sofia decides she likes any shades of gray better than red. She also decides that this boy with lemon-coloured hair who sits cross-legged next to her on the cold, tiled floor, knees brushing much more occasionally than she prefers, is creating a breach in her thoughts that constantly annoys her. She shifts a little to the right, he follows, the rubber of his sneakers squeaking loudly, almost as if in protest. Sofia feels some pity for his shoes.

Then he pulls away from his drawing, half-concealed with his body, and looks sheepishly at her, tapping his black crayon (non-toxic, of course) against a white tile, forcing a spot of black on it. His soft, common-blue eyes, smeared with a slab of charcoal black for the pupils, transmits his reasoning rather starkly; "You smell nice."

Sofia blinks, and promptly gathers her scattered crayons into the creased box, and migrates into a distant corner, facing the whitewashed wall, determined to be undisturbed in her grayish sky with flecks of white for stars.

She presses harder for this glossy effect into the paper, creating a virtual house that is otherwise impossible to construct in reality. Whatever. She's six, and dauntless with her fantasies. And then she feels it - no, them.

Eyes. Eyes flitting across the back of her generic shirt, eyes filling in the crevices, eyes pressing full blows into back. The eyes seem to almost seep into the slits of the blinds, dripping down the floor into a colourless pool. She fumbles with this curious feeling, hurtling some glances back like a match in the boxing ring. Her hands slip on the crayons, creating a blue fissure across the landscape of her drawing.

The teacher, preoccupied with helping the children tape up their drawings to the wall, seems to be ignorant to this feeling. As are the other children. But Sofia feels this vibrating of air like oxygen burning, and a presence that hummed with a low frequency. Sofia, feeling colder and colder, drags her belongings once more to the condensed group of nursery children. But she couldn't dissolve herself in the baseless chatter, and in her distraction coloured the tile instead, creating an outline of blue.

She hears it then. The short, nearly derisive yet warm laughter. Yet it sounds somewhat old, like each laugh cost about a hundred years. Sofia grappled with herself, and she looks -

"Who's that man at the window?"

Some other heads snap up, the room is silenced resolutely, then the teacher, with a unkindly scowl, goes over and pries up one blind with her thumb.

"No one's there, Sofia. Get back to work."

Sofia's curiosity turns sour and petulant. Grimly, she grips a crayon and resumes colouring, exerting more force than necessary. A small nudge into her side nearly throws her jagged scrawling of colouring into the green grass.

She's about to hit the person back, but then the lemon haired boy asks in a soft whisper, "Did you really see the man?"

* * *

**Annabeth, as a person**

She listed a few things to help Percy, compiled a photo album for the sake of it, and made him sit down one evening when she was thirty-one and he was seventeen still, to memorize the little things Annabeth liked and told him a few trivial secrets that shouldn't have mattered to anyone else but them.

Percy couldn't remember the first few, and Annabeth became very scholarly about it, her eyes dimmed a fraction.

Percy, grinning, told her, "I have all the time in the world to memorize it."

In the slanting light of their kitchen apartment, some of her premature gray strands surfaced amongst her curly blonds. She looked down into the swirling black of her coffee, sipped it and reminded him a little hopelessly, "I know. That's why I'm telling you this, Seaweed Brain."

* * *

**The ice-cream man**

Percy thumbs a nickel in his back pocket, a lost whistle tune on the tip of his tongue. The world has more or less evolved, and seems to have been perfectly comfortable with letting him stay behind in his years. He gouges a faint radius into the grass with the tip of his sneaker. And then he hears some moist, padded footsteps and someone clear their throat.

He straightens his back and takes a minute, then two to smile. Sofia is looking across the lawn, at him, with full moon-shine eyes. He doesn't really need to remember all the facts that constructed Annabeth, even. He just knows.

Little wisps of life emerge as she opens her mouth with a sharpened set of eyes that hasn't really changed.

"I saw you looking at me earlier," then she swallows a nervous-shaped lump and adds, "Sir."

Percy only looks at her with drifting eyes, and laughs a laugh that shakes shoulders at himself and partly at Annabeth, "Oh, you haven't changed at all."

Sofia, appearing indignant but ridiculous with her neutral, surprisingly mature backpack sagging down to the back of her knees and her dirtied pale blue shorts a few sizes too large for her, frowns. And her frowns are thousands of years old.

Percy feels the frown reach into him, and yank out a couple of decades out of him. He leans down so he wouldn't have to tower over her as he talks, which he knows she detests, and places his palms onto his knees.

He sees her eyes clear as he says, "I'll get you some ice-cream."

But then she recovers and fires back, "Mom said not to talk to strangers I don't know."

Percy very nearly laughs at the irony, and manages not to sound creepy or pedophilic, or so he hopes. "Hey, I knew you in all ways possible. All timelines. I'm not a stranger. Promise."

"Huh?"

He jerks his head in the direction of the ice-cream truck, a secret smile in his eyes that she can't understand. "I promise. Just ice-cream."

* * *

**In a not-so-distant memory**

Percy sat on the very hard, flat ground, fiddling with weeds, curling and uncurling them around his finger. He, like most humans do in an unconscious, fleeting way, thought about death. He thought about a dried, yellow kiss with too much sun in his eyes and too many words to fit his mouth. He thought about a beating human heart and felt like his own. It was a slow and steady progression, this process of being immortal. It was not a painful one, not particularly, but it made him wonder; _what makes a god? _

He wasn't even able to get far when a voice jarred him away and shattered him back into Long Island, Camp Half-Blood. "You look like you did enough thinking for the whole world."

He looked up, lips crusted into a slight smile, and neutralized his thoughts to be more fitting of a boy who was still prematurely human. "You wouldn't believe me if I had. That's your job, anyway."

Annabeth didn't seem to falter, just smoothly descending into the ground next to him. She deflated visibly. Her eyes had become darkened into something unrecognizable. She seemed older. "I've thought about it. I'm staying human."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah. Immortality just doesn't work out that well for me."

"Oh," he said softly, and his hands begged to be eased by hers, aching in a bone-deep way that eroded the muscles and nerves.

"I also wondered," she paused briefly, "how many lifetimes would make an eternity."

Percy frowned. "What does that mean?"

"Seriously," Annabeth pursed her lips, parted then wetted them. "I hope that millions of years you bargained for makes you wiser. Seaweed Brain, I'm saying that I'm going to live as Annabeth Chase and a million more names and lives, until you finish your eternity."

Percy was silent for a long time. In that time, it felt like his world was being taken apart, put hastily together, and then torn into halves again. Annabeth shifted on the ground, pleading in that pitiless and quiet way for Percy to speak again.

Finally, he said: "You make it sound like a prison sentence."

"It kind of is. You didn't know what you signed up for."

He grumbled a little more, and then she laughed a tight, sedated laugh that she hoped he would carry on for her, and then it died away, tragically.

"And in exchange for harvesting your stupidity, look out for me, Seaweed Brain," she said gently, and made do with perusing him with abnormally lucid eyes. Her lips went soft around the words, so did her heart. It chipped a bit, and the rest of her suppressed a cowardly, timid smile that didn't seem like her at all.

Percy's eyes regarded her briefly. Then they floated off her and followed the scent of the sea. He couldn't seem to look at her, only eventuating at the flaying skin of her knees.

"I'll make sure to laugh at _all _your mistakes along the way."

She smiled but it was a horrible smile to give. It layered Percy with a heavy suffocation. "Oh, you won't _dare_, Percy Jackson."

Percy Jackson said nothing, allowed his sore soul to be comforted for once, and went on to fix all the things he should have fixed between him and her.

* * *

A/N: This is tentatively a two-shot (?) or so, cause I'm indecisive and lazy. :) I used past tense for the portions that took place in the past, and present tense for the present. I'm sorry if the story appears rushed or illogical, or if the characters are out of character. But, thanks for making it all the way to the end! I'll post up the rest when I'm done with it. Thank you! :)


End file.
